Web Accessibility

1
Web Accessibility

• Its Not Just About Adding Alt Tags

2

• Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, as amended
  by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 requires
  that Federal agencies' electronic and information
  technology is accessible to people with
  disabilities, including employees and members of
  the public.
• All Web pages created or modified on or after
  June 21, 2001 are required to comply
• Applies to Internet as well as Intranet pages

3
The Standards

• 1194.21 Software applications and operating
  systems.
• 1194.22 Web-based intranet and internet
  information and applications
• 1194.23 Telecommunications products.
• 1194.24 Video and multimedia products.
• training and informational video and multimedia
  productions which support the agency's mission, .
  
• 1194.25 Self contained, closed products.
• information kiosks and information transaction
  machines, copiers, printers, calculators, fax
  machines, and other similar types of products.
• 1194.26 Desktop and portable computers.

4
Accessibility of Web 2.0

• In 2001, most Web content was left to right, top
  to bottom, text-based
• In 2007, content is much more dynamic, fluid, and
  interactive
• Multimedia, social media, Mash-up pages all bring
  new opportunities to the NOAA Web but they also
  pose accessibility challenges.

5
Multimedia / Podcasts

• Captioning required for all training and
  informational and multimedia productions which
  support the agency's mission that contain speech
  or other audio information
• Podcast - transcripts
• PowerPoints, Excel, PDF documents have you
  checked these for accessibility?

6
The Web as An Application

• The interactive nature of the Web requires more
  than simply adding an alt tag to pages
• Live content on pages may not be readily
  available to people using assistive technologies
• Multimedia rich content may not interact with
  existing captioning/alt tags

7
Resources

• Section 508
• www.section508.gov/
• NOAA Section 508 Contacts
• www.cio.noaa.gov/itmanagement/508_contacts.htm
• Accessible Rich Internet Applications
• www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria
• U.S. Access Board
• www.access-board.gov/
• Section 508 Refresh
• http//teitac.org/